A Drop in the River
by bluethursday
Summary: Shindou Hikaru. A look at an alternate possibility wherein Hikaru was born a little differently, and the life she would lead. 'I'm a girl.' She corrects and it pleases her to see Sai stutter to a halt, looking her over once more. She knows exactly what he sees. She has been made painfully aware of herself.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Shindou Hikaru. A look at an alternate possibility wherein Hikaru was born a little differently, and the life she would lead.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, also this is is my first Hikago fic, go me.

Note: This will probably be a oneshot.

...

Shindou Hikaru lives until his hands slowly wrinkle, his arthritis worsening, his body old as all things become once they are born. He dies in his sleep, never seeing another sunrise come through the blinds he swore he had closed the night before, never cursing viciously at the light that bothered him, never setting another moku down on the goban.

He's eight years old holding the hand of a taller man, dressed in white, long black hair swaying behind him and he's happy.

''Tousan, where are we going?'' He asks, his child voice high and thin. In a few years it will deepen, even out...but not yet.

''You'll see when we get there Hikaru.'' His father tells him, his eyes grey.

This is memory.

They're in France, in an apartment in Paris, just inside the city limits, skimming against the outskirts and bleeding outwards.

Jean is quiet with dark hair and dark skin stretched over high cheekbones and light eyes, a left over presence from his French grandfather, his mother's Haitian heritage stark in everything else, even in the way he pronounces his words, the lilt to his speech. He sounds like he's singing, and when he does sing, little bits and pieces as he puts the meat to fry or the water to boil it's always old, always tinged with stories from deep woods.

He's one of the reasons the little old ladies down in the second story look askance at him, even though, they're heading into the new millennium. The paper tells him the worlds going to end in another ten years and he smiles, polite and gentle.

He's been hearing the same thing from the man two blocks from the corner store he buys his milk. The cashier is always on edge when he comes, in no matter how slowly he moves, or where he puts his hands. He's thick and tall, built like a tree, solid with no give. They'd have to chop him down to make him bend. He doesn't know who they are but he thinks they've got their eyes on him.

Michel is not.

He's blond and blue eyed which makes it okay for him to be loud and rude and boisterous, his grin splinting over the gap in his teeth, a tiny thing that remained unnoticed until pointed out. Blonde like a pair of bleached bangs on a boy yet to be born, or already born or never and always born.

Michel who was almost thrown out of a dining establishment for licking some cream off of Jean's cheek.

Michel who plays chess like a madman, a heretic against the staunch tradition which binds Jean to his moves.

Like a sodomite. Like a whore down in the district. Like a man who blew smoke rings into Jeans face because he was tired, because no matter what they did, their neighbors who beat their wives would always be more qualified to care about each other than they were.

Michel with his skin like milk.

Michel who had never played Go in his life, and Jean who had never played it right beside him.

Shindou Hikaru who opens her eyes in a tiny island county named Japan, to a mother who loves her and a father who's too scared to hold her for the first moments of her life, because every doctor had told them that their baby was a boy and every doctor had been wrong.

Hikaru who had been named long before her birth, who's certificate had been assigned a name from the list her parents had put together while the doctors informed Shindou-san that his son was a daughter.

Hikaru who's name was thankfully gender neutral.

…

She's two years old and her mother dresses her up in bows and frills and doll like clothes that she hates. She's new to the world and pulling at straps, tugging at lace edges, trying to get out as fast as she can.

She strips naked in the park and runs away from her parents laughing loud as she can. Her mother finds her and presses her close telling her not to that again, ever, and did you hear me Hikaru? I said never again and I meant it.

Hikaru looks up at her with solemn green eyes and nods.

She's lying. It's not the first time, it's just the first time she can remember.

She spends years like this at war with a mother who loves but does not understand that no, she doesn't want to wear a dress. A mother who sighs and at the tender age of five allows her only child to pick her clothes from the boys section and takes her to get her hair hair cut. Shoulder length locks, black and thick fall to the floor.

Hikaru grins up at her mother who's eyes are glassy.

….

Hikaru learns with ease and the things she learns, the things she grows into are these. If she does well enough in school, her parents will leave her alone about what she wears and what she does.

The better she does, the less concern there is about the state of her clothes, the clothes she wears, her demand to have a boys uniform instead of a girls, her love of soccer and sports and any game she can get dirty while playing.

When she's smart, she's eccentric and when she's average she's troubled, or gender confused, or in need of a psychiatrist.

She prefers to be smart, and it's easy when the other option is troubled. When the other option is dresses and sandals that pinch her feet instead of the running shoes she preferred.

She's eight years old and she's eccentric.

…

She's ten years old and she wants to bleach her bang. She doesn't even know why, she just..wants. What she doesn't want is this.

Her mother shooting her pleased looks about the state of her hair and how she really should buy some proper clothing instead of the sweatpants she wears all the time. She fingers a lock of hair, that's grown longer, her bangs falling into her eyes.

She goes the hairdresser anyway and has them cut it shorter, ink black hair twisting into multiple cowlicks as the length decreased once more.

Her hair is unmanageable when it gets shorter. Her hair is..eccentric. She runs her fingers through it and doesn't correct the barber when he calls her Shindou-kun, in the way an very old man would call what he assumed to be a very young boy after a pleasant haircut.

…

Heihachi looks at his granddaughter and grins. He'll never say it out loud, but he likes the little spitfire his son spawned.

''Do you want to learn how to play Go?'' He asks her as she flops down in front of him. She shrugs but agrees.

''Sure.''

She'll do big things. He knows she will. If only to defend her right to live her life the way she wants to live it. She will.

He shows her the game and lets her finger the moku, her hands awkward on the polished stones. This is how they spend their weekends. Long, lazy games, where Hikaru doesn't think ahead or plan, just lays one stone down after the other and absorbs the rules slowly at the pace of a snail.

He doesn't push her to do more, although he knows she can. She has agreed to play. That is enough to warm an old man's heart.

…

She's ten years old and riffling through her grandfathers attic, angry and bored and alone in his house. She's ten and she finds a goban covered in stains.

She's ten and she's scrubbing at them furiously.

''I though she'd grow out of it.'' She can hear in the back of her mind, ''Do you think there's something wrong with her?''

''It's Hikaru, she's her own person. We can't decide who she's going to be for her.'' Her father defends, his voice unsure and she knows her parents love her, she knows they're supportive, but she also knows they don't understand.

She's not Hikaru girl who wants to be a boy or is a boy, or Hikaru tomboy. She's Hikaru. Just, Hikaru, not girl or boy, just her.

Her hands clench the bottom of her sleeve as she scrubs harder and bites back the frustration.

_Can you hear my voice_, a voice calls out and she doesn't notice, _You can hear my voice can't you? You can. You can. _

The voice repeats and her head snaps up, '' Ojisan?'' She asks.

_Thank you god. I will now return to the land of the living. _

The voice speaks. It's not her grandfather.

She's ten years old and she has a ghost named Sai haunting her every move.

…

''So.'' She starts, ''We're stuck together I guess.''

Sai bows and replies, ''Yes, I'm afraid so. I apologize for the intrusion.''

Hikaru breathes out as slowly as she can before she speaks, her thoughts jumbling together and pulling apart, ''My name, is Hikaru.''

They have to start somewhere. The beginning is as good a place as any.

…

She pulls out her laptop, a present for making first in her class and signs in, ''I don't play Go, not as well as you do,'' She tells him, ''But I know a way that you can play. As yourself I mean. Not as anyone else. You, Fujiwara no Sai. Your name. Your Go.''

She's on a slippery slope already, she has no idea what her parents would think of her playing a game older than their existence. Probably one more thing that would make her eccentric. Mentally she shrugs her shoulders.

Sai flutters around her in glee, ''Thank you Hikaru-kun, thank you thank you, thank you.''

She laughs at that, her fingers gliding over the keyboard, looking through reviews and sites she could log into. As far as ghost go, he's not bad.

''I'm a girl.'' She corrects and it pleases her to see Sai stutter to a halt, looking her over once more. She knows exactly what he sees. She has been made painfully aware of herself.

She's a boy. She's ten and her breasts haven't come in yet, nor have her hips and her voice has always been on the lower register even for a child, pleasantly between male and female. Her hair is black and messy, her eyes green and slanted.

She's tall for her age and sex.

She's wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and large yellow t-shirt with a number five on the back, both of garments are soft and thin, and both were bought in the boys section of a department store.

''Do all females dress like this now?'' Sai asks, his head cocked to the side.

Hikaru shakes her head, ''Most people think I'm a boy.''

Sai frowns and snaps open the fan, ''How rude of them.'' The living being in the room, laughs as she sets up an account at NetGo.

S-A-I

For the first time since the Heinan Era Fujiwara no Sai lived and breathed.

The ghost floating behind the little girl smiled, ''Thank you.'' He repeated.

Hikaru smiled back, ''Nah, it's not like I did anything big. Just, we'll play in the afternoons, I need time to study and go to school.''

''I'll get to play go every day?'' Sai wondered.

''That's what I'm hoping for.''

''Oh, how wonderful.'' Sai effused, his eyes starry.

…

''Ne, ne, Hikaru?'' Sai called out, ''You said you played Go Hikaru. Play with me.''

Hikaru looked up from her her Shonen Jump and raised an eyebrow, ''You'll see me play on the weekend, I always play my grandfather then.''

Sai flailed, ''But, but Karu, I want to play you.''

''Let me finish this.'' Hikaru negotiated. Honestly half of the time Sai had the patience of a four year old.

Sai pouted but agreed.

…

Sai spent half of his afternoon Go time terrorizing the net Go community and the other half playing the game with Hikaru, forcing the girl think about her moves and playing back games he found interesting.

Hikaru spent this time spreading kifu on her floor for the spirit to loom over and sneaking back to her manga, purring in silent glee as the newest pages of Naruto came to life before her eyes.

…

''Sai.'' Hikaru spoke, ''I think we broke net Go.''

Sai looked over his shoulder at the requests for a game with the mysterious Sai. Fanning himself he grinned.

''Ne, Karu what do you think?''

''I think you've just leveled up.'' Hikaru retorted back, ''Stronger players for Sai, go us, we're awesome, who awesome, team Sai.''

Hikaru concluded her little chant with a victory dance, done while sitting down, her hands rising in the air mimicking a cheerleader who had sadly misplaced her pompoms and legs.

Sai joined the victory dance, waving his fan back and forth, hair hair flopping around in its tie.

…

Hikaru is eleven years old and she's spent her time half convinced that she's finally lost her mind, that this is what her parents were afraid of and that she's made herself an imaginary friend.

This stops after she casually shows a Go magazine to her grandfather and hears him complain and praise, at length mind you about a player named Sai.

She breathes easier after that.

She's eleven years old and she's still smart not troubled. Her only friend outside of soccer games, is a spirit who's body was long since taken by a river somewhere in Japan. Names change. She's doesn't want to know it anyway, that place that took her best friend but other than that...life is good.

She's eleven and her hair still short. She's eleven and she lives, sleeps, breathes and eats Go alongside a man she knows as Sai.

''Karu Karu.'' Sai starts as Hikaru shoves a piece of fruit in her mouth, ''Yeah.'' She mumbles back, picking up her bag and running through the front door, ''You should play Go with other people too.''

Hikaru rolls her eyes and swallows her food, ''I don't think you noticed this..but I suck at Go. Like, so bad it hurts.''

Sai frowns, ''You're good.'' He insists and Hikaru rubs a hand over her face. She doesn't like to start fights over little things, it undermines her authority in larger matters. No one can tell her she doesn't know strategy. Her childhood was one very long, very arduous battle.

She can smell a tantrum a mile coming and she'll give him this if only to shut him up, ''Sure, we'll go play after school, they've got Salons for that and everything.''

Sai squeals like the four year old he is and waves his fan back and forth, ''Go Karu, its team Karu, we're awesome, who's awesome. That's right, team Karu.''

Hikaru smiles at the happy chant and walks into her school head held hight. That's right. She thinks. Team Karu. We're awesome.

With a bounce in her step she mouthes. Who's awesome. Team Karu.

If anyone asks, she's lip synching to the latest song. No one asks, and that's okay because she's got a thousand year old relic at her back dancing in her honor.

…

She's eleven years old and she tears into Touya Akira apart like a very bear into s mountain lion. She looks at his Go and plays like she's fighting Sai, like she's struggling upriver and trying to not to drown.

She plays him and leaves him him sitting at by a goban, mouth tight in shock, shrugging her shoulders and considering herself average for besting a boy her own age, by two moku at that. Damn.

…

Touya's hands tremble as he looks down at the game, at the monster who introduced himself as Shindou Hikaru before carelessly trampling over his him with an elegance unseen in the way he sprawled his legs but held his stones with care.

Swallowing he replays the game, over and over and over again. His hands still shake as he makes his way home and he wonders.

_Who are you?_

He spends the day searching for a boy named Shindou Hikaru, and finds nothing. He spends the night deciding to stake out his fathers establishment in the hopes of meeting him again.

_Shindou Hikaru._ His mind sounds out.

Who are you?

The Touya's have always been prone to obsession.

…

Touya finds Shindou two weeks later, stepping once more into the Salon, sliding the entrance fee to the front desk.

He watches him like a hawk before calling out, ''Shindou-san.''

Hikaru's head turns languidly towards the source of noise before he smiles, slow and easy, ''Hey Touya.''

''Would you like to play again?'' Touya asks, a voice inside him silently desperate for another game, another chance to examine this boy, his own age, no older. Another chance to win, to try.

''Sure.'' Shindou shrugs and once again flops down in front of the goban, informal as anything, ''You can play black if you want.'' He offers.

Touya accepts the gesture and agrees to it. Halfway through their game he asks, ''Are you a professional?''

Akira's not sure what he's expecting. In his mind it goes something like this. Hikaru was half Korean or half Chinese and this was the first time he had stepped foot in Japan despite his father's ancestry.

The other little explanation he had concocted was a very long severe illness or coma which had not allowed the player in front of him to ascend within the ranks as would be appropriate.

What he doesn't expect is the laughter that comes directly afterwards a long and serious pause on his end where he wondered if he had offended Shindou by bringing up that which had clearly prevented him from playing Go professionally.

''Pro- pro, what?'' Shindou stuttered out, wiping at his eyes, ''Oh man. You've got to be kidding. I suck at this game.''

Touya froze, much like a cat which had been dipped in water, ''You...suck?'' He asked, his blood running cold.

Hikaru's hysterics had calmed down enough for the younger one to pull himself together, ''Yeah, I'm not good at this game. I always lose when I usually play.''

Touya nodded as though he had not been told that the world was in fact a square and his entire life was a lie.

''Who do you usually play?'' He asks, wondering about the possibility of a small but secluded cult of Go playing prodigies who, for the search of the Hand of God were informed that they were horrible at the game they devoted their lives playing in an effort to humble them.

Hikaru played his next move and answered, ''Well, I used to play my grandpa but I win against him now and he throws moku at me when I do. Most of the time I play net Go, but only with one other player. I don't know who he is, but it's...it's what we do.''

''Ah..Net Go?'' Touya prompted.

Hikaru hummed, ''Mostly we email each other moves back and forth. I've never played against anyone else but out of the two people, well three although I'm not counting you cause your my age, so then two I only win against one of them which make me like, really bad, It's like getting fifty percent on a test.''

Akira struggles not to...scream maybe, break down crying or start pelting Shindou with moku.

''I'm a professional.'' He squeaks out.

Hikaru's eyes widen and he runs his fingers through messy hair, ''Really?'' He asks, ''That's pretty cool. I mean you're really young and everything.''

Touya nods dumbly and tries to look back at the game only to find that his mind had melted into cheese in the period of the time he had asked Shindou if he was a professional.

Of all the answers that was the one he was not expecting.

Their second game lasts a shorter amount of time then their first, Touya's nerves frazzled beyond reason.

''Will you come back and play again?'' He asks at the end.

Shindou looks at him and grins, ''Why not, Sai keep bugging me to play other people. This should shut him up.''

''Sai?'' Akira mouthes as Shindou once again leaves the Salon, Akira's life in ruins.

Touya is eleven years old and he has just discovered that the world is in fact a square.

In the background Sai waves his fan in glee and laughs, ''You're good Hikaru, I told you, you were.''


	2. Chapter 2

Note: I had intended for this to be a one shot mostly because I wasn't sure if I could continue the story in a way that would satisfy me although I really wanted to do more. I pulled this second chapter together, although it's a bit choppy, and a bit disjointed. This is for sure, the last chapter in the series. This is all I can do in this stream at this point in time, it may be all I can ever do for this story.

As to the strange French scene in chapter one, I was going through alternate lives of Hikaru and I understand perfectly how it made almost no sense and how it was odd and awkward but it sounded pretty and I just couldn't cut it out even though that would have made the story more cohesive.

…..

A Drop In The River

….

The thing about them, Hikaru and Sai, the consequence of spending their days together, Sai floating around in her consciousness was that it was almost impossible not ask uncomfortable questions. Personal questions that spanned two very different generations.

Hikaru liked to ask them at night when everything was quiet and they seemed like the only two people left in the world. It always seemed most appropriate then, even though she knew others were still moving around outside.

Sometimes she asks him, ''What was it like to die.''

And he'll tell her it was ''Cold.'' And she'll nod and not understand and other times she'll ask him about the stars and trees and the tea he drank or the people he hated and he'll answer her. His parents, his life, and everything in between, the story of Sai told in bedtime tales to a young girl on the cusp of adolescence. Hikaru liked the happy stories best, the ones about how he ruined his best robes at the age of seven when he tripped into a puddle and she offers her years of streaking in exchange, of jumping into puddles freely, and how she's torn apart wardrobes running wild in the streets of Japan.

He asks her about metal birds and horses, about strange machines that eat people and the system of government she lives under. She only knows so much, and with her knowledge she tries to explain as best she can and what she does not know they learn together through libraries and websites that look reputable enough.

''What do you want to do?'' He asks her on one of their nights, his eyes bright with curiosity. Any other time she would shrug and ignore him, but nights like these were theirs and they were inherently important.

Her brow furrows and she answers back, ''I don't know.'' Because she doesn't. She could be a doctor, a heart surgeon, a lawyer, a businesswoman, she knows she can because she's smart enough and her grades reflect that. She could be a biologist or a teacher or anything at all, except maybe not a dancer or a musician and even then if she started now she could try. But of all the options she knows this. She wants to be big. She wants to rush in with both feet and make waves large enough to impact cities. She wants whirlpools and storms, she thinks that she could never exist with anything less.

So she tells him, ''Something big.'', her hand stretching up to the window pane from her place on the futon. She closes one eye and pulls her thumb and forefinger closer together. From where she's sitting she's squishing the moon. ''Huh.'' She sounds and between those two fingers she rolls a planet in her palm like the white moku she's played with a hundred times or so.

Sai smiles at her as he always does his face tender, even when she's not looking at him, especially then because this girl, this strange little girl gave him hope. ''It will be an honor to watch.''

She shakes her head, ''It will be an honor to join.'' She's not about to let the best friend she's ever known spend his life in her shadow. She'll be awesome and he'll run the Go world from a computer wherever she ends up and they'll have years of nighttime conversations. They'll have forever.

They watch the sky for a few moments more before Sai slyly as he can, which is to say not sly at all suggests ''What about professional Go?'' his voice innocent and Hikaru laughs, stifling the sound with her hand, then her pillow because it was exactly like Sai to nudge her towards the game he loved so much.

She falls asleep face down and leaves drool stains on the pillowcase.

….

Hikaru sticks her tongue out in concentration and makes her move on the goban, they're nearing the end of their game and each move counts, each move requires precision, she no longer has enough space for longer strategies, her maneuvering capability is gone and she's going to lose.

She doesn't expect it to win. Not against Sai, but she'll make it count as much as she can even in Shidougo even though she hates it when they play teaching games.

Sai's fan tells her where to place his last stone, his face solemn.

She bows her head and resigns, ''It was a good game.'' He smiles a mysterious smile, the one that makes him look as old as he really is, all one thousand years etched deep in his expression. His age is in the way he holds his fan, forefinger pointing alongside the delicate tool, in way he sits across from her, his back straight. Soundlessly his face changes, slides into a different one, the one she knows just as well as the serious version, it pulls the corners of his mouth wide and turns his eyes into little curves of joy, his hands flapping in glee, his robes billowing around him.

''You've gotten much better Karu.'' He exclaims, the nickname rolling off his tongue with ease. It seems like every second word out of his mouth was Karu, or Hikaru and she was okay with that. It was nice to have someone there. With her.

Pausing she continues to look at her unseen guest and tells him, ''I am..happy you're here.'' She struggles to articulate, ''I'm.'' She thinks, ''I'm glad I got to meet you.'' She wants him to know that because for a moment, when his face was so solemn she wondered who, in all those years told him they cared about him.

His life for all its length seemed lonely.

''I.'' Sai's started, his expression melting at the sight of his host, awkwardly fiddling with one of the white stones she had captured in their game, ''I am glad to have known you too.''

There's no special occasion, no reason, no nighttime peace. It's just one of their weekends, an early morning game played with two, Hikaru's sleep clothes loose and ridiculous, little patterned game boys dotting her pants.

Some things need to be said in the light of day, to make them real, to make them count.

….

The third time she slouches into the salon Touya's waiting for her as he was previously and before he can ask she pays the attendant and makes her way over to him, relaxed and at ease.

''Hey.'' She greets casually, her hands shoved in the pockets of her cargo pants.

''Good afternoon Shindou-san.'' Touya responds, like the well bred schoolboy he was. Hikaru takes off her baseball ball cap and sets it down beside the goban, between the bowls that held the black and white moku.

''You look like you've been dressed by an eighty year old blind woman.'' She offers with the full understanding that she really had no leg to stand on what with what was technically cross dressing on her part, but the full lavender suit makes her eyes hurt. She wants to know if he got picked on at school, but she doesn't think so. For all of his long hair and pastel clothes Touya had steel in his backbone.

Akira's eyes widen just a fraction before he replies, body stiff in offense, ''I had a meeting at the Go Association this morning, I did not have time to change into something more casual.'' He says casual like its a dirty word.

Hikaru blinks and snorts, because she's never seen the boy in front of her do casual. It was all slacks, all the time, and sweaters. To be fair she'd only seen him three times, counting today but common sense and a ghost that was sighing in despair while whacking her gently with a fan begged to differ.

''I bet you never wore a pair of jeans in your life.'' She counters and the light blush that colors his cheekbones is a victory.

''Hey.'' She raises her hands in peace, ''I don't actually care what you're wearing. At all. And if you like the purple thing you've got going on, great, I just felt I should say something incase, I don't know, you thought you looked good in it.''

She's doing the public a great service, really she is. She may shop in the boys section, but at least she looks good doing it.

Sai's fan whacking would have been so much more effective if he wasn't laughing softy behind one of his sleeves. Hikaru sighs mentally, _that man. _

Akira looked absolutely befuddled, and Hikaru patiently waited for him to scrounge up a response, she had been told time and time again that she came across as off putting in the best of situations and rude in the worst, or other less savory words to describe rude. If she was being mean she would have placed a stone down on the goban.

''I, I never -'' Touya cut himself off while Hikaru watched on, ''Do you enjoy unsettling me?'' He asked.

Hikaru nodded, ''It's the hair. It makes me want to shave off one of your eyebrows.''

''Just one?'' Touya questions, unwittingly getting sucked into the black hole known as Shindou-logic wherein the only people who would ever get out alive were Shindou and possibly some hermits who spent their lives out in the woods eating off the land.

''Yes.'' Shindou imparted with sage wisdom, ''If I shaved off both it would be even.''

''Are you going to shave off my eyebrows.'' Touya wonders and mentally prepares himself to back away from the crazy crazy boy in front of him.

''Noooo.'' Hikaru placates, drawing out the word, ''I'm going to play Go with you.''

Touya starts the game.

This time he wins. By a moku.

Dissecting their choices he watches Shindou fiddle with his hat, ''Are you certain you don't wish to become a professional. It would be a shame to waste such an ability.''

Hikaru scrunches up her face as Sai whispers his opinion on the idea of his host becoming a professional Go player. It mostly consisted of exited agreement.

''I don't really know.'' She offers, ''I don't even know what a ''professional'' does, or how to be one or anything like that.''

Akira, as all good players, senses a weak point and attacks, ''I could show you around the institute.'' He offers, just a half second too quickly, ''I am also well equipped to explain the life of a Go professional.'' This is his rival his inner thoughts whisper, the one who can match him move for move, the one he can grow with and he does not want Shindou to leave, to stop growing in time with him.

Sai squeals with glee and Hikaru bites her lip, ''Next week?'' She asks, ''The weekend maybe?''

''Would Saturday be acceptable.'' Touya suggests.

Hikaru nods and yawns, ambling out of the salon with the same ease she entered. _I have no idea what you're grinning about_ she thinks at Sai, _it's your Go that's going to be cut short because of this. _Sai contrary as ever continues to pronounce his joy.

…

The day of the great Go Excursion as Sai has taken to calling it started with some stretches in preparation.

''On, two.'' Sai called out as he moved through different easy positions in his formal garb, ''That's right Hikaru, one two, one two, one two, three.''

Hikaru doesn't even bother asking why they're doing this, it's too early and stretches are good for her or something. She could care less, her eyes bleary as tries to copy the ghost.

''One two.'' He continues and Hikaru notices a wetness between her thighs. Ambling of to the bathroom she examines her undergarments. Of all the days, in all the years she thinks.

''Shit.'' She curses, grabbing a sanitary napkin from the bathroom cupboard and sets it on the counter.

''Are you okay Hikaru?'' Sai calls out, his voice concerned, and Hikaru pouts, like the child she is, ''No.'' She shouts back, ''I'm leaking.''

''Pardon?'' Sai gasps and Hikaru exits the washroom pants pulled up, ''Lady time?'' She waves in the general direction of her pelvis.

''What?'' Sai blurts out, his face turning bright red. Hikaru has the brief but powerful image of her, as she was, waving her soiled underwear over her head like a flag. It probably said something about her that she wanted to do it. Bad. So, so bad.

Moving back to bathroom she can't resist, ''I'm becoming a woman Sai. It's a natural part of life.'' That's what her mother told her anyway.

Sai tries to melt into his robes in embarrassment.

…

This is how Touya Akira finds out that Shindou Hikaru is in fact, not a boy.

Shindou, needing to go to the bathroom, while not knowing where the bathroom was, thus having to be escorted there walked into the woman's section.

''Wait.'' Touya called out grabbing onto his guests arm, ''That's the woman's bathroom.'' He pointed out, sure that his companion hadn't been paying attention.

''I know.'' Shindou replied. And wasn't this a conversation he had so many times. To be fair, when the line for the ladies room was crowded she had been known to sneak into the mens but still. She was entitled to use the womans' bathroom, today more than any other day.

''You're a boy Shindou.'' Touya insisted and Hikaru sighed.

''No.'' She corrected, ''I'm not.''

''Yes. You are.'' Touya insisted.

''I know my own parts.'' Hikaru snapped, irritated. It was fine when other people who didn't know she was a girl assumed she was a boy, but to tell someone she was a girl and then be told that she was wrong made her want to throw things, and shave off Touya's hair. She had expected confusion, maybe surprise, but the vehement denial was something else.

''Clearly you don't.'' Touya waved at Shindou's direction. Hikaru's nostrils flared with aggression and even Sai was sending Akira dirty looks from behind Hikaru's back. With no further thought Hikaru dropped her pants.

Akira's eyes were drawn downwards without his permission and in underwear it couldn't have been more clear. Shindou Hikaru was female. With more dignity than Touya though possible from someone who had just pantsed themselves Hikaru picked up her jeans and walked into the girls lavatory.

Sai, unseen glared at the Touya the entire time and gave him a rather scathing lecture of the treatment of women in modern society and how Touya needed to be re-educated until such a time where he could behave like a gentleman. Touya whose face was staring to resemble nothing more than a tomato, was very thankful that no one had been around to see that, and that Go was not a popular game. If it was the Association would have had more visitors it would have meant that someone would have been seen Shindou remove his, her, he corrected, _her_ pants.

Resiting the urge to ump out a window he reassessed what he knew about Hikaru.

…

Washing her hands Hikaru scowled at Touya's words, nodding along to Sai's complaints, ''Such nerve.'' He admonished, ''What a rude little boy Hikaru, I hope you thrash him soundly.''

''I never knew you were so bloody minded Sai.'' Hikaru comments.

Sai's smile darkened, ''In Go, Karu, beat him in Go. In my time a man could have lost his life over such an insult to a woman's honor.''

Hikaru laughed and nodded, shaking off her hands, drying them on her pants.

…

Akira bowed to her as she walked out, ''I am so incredibly sorry for my mistake and my rude words. I hope you can accept my apology.''

Hikaru bopped him on the head lightly and smiled, ''Yeah, yea, it's fine.'' Pinching one of his cheeks with a strength learned from her aunt Hikaru grinned, ''If you ever do anything like that again I will knee you in the groin.''

''H-hai.'' Akira stutters and waits for her to release the painful grip on his face.

''It happens a lot.'' Hikaru tells him, ''People just don't usually argue with me when I tell them I'm a girl.''

''Ah. I am sorry.'' Akira apologizes again, wondering if ever there would come a time when he wouldn't make such a fool of himself around Shindou.

In later years Hikaru would grow fond of relating the story with great and sadistic glee about the time Touya Meijin the second mistook her for a boy

…

She's nineteen and her hair still short.

She's nineteen and she plays for Sai's title, the only one she's ever wanted like she's starving for it, like she's desperate and ready to burn the goban if that's what it takes. She plays with the game with the hands of a girl who's lost her best friend.

She's green eyed and staring at Kuwabara sensei's smiling face, his bald patch shining in the light. ''Hehe.'' He chuckles, ''I always knew it was going to be you brat.''

She grins back at him and bows.

Shindou Hikaru is nineteen years old and she's the first female title holder in a decade. Kuwabara Honinbou does not relent with ease but she pries it from him with all the determination of a ten year old refusing to wear the girls uniform in school.

Shindou Honinbou.

It sounded like a the movement of a paper fan through air, her own fan, resting beside her with care. The last remnant of the man who taught her Go.

''Congratulations.'' Akira tells her, while Ogata scowls at her from behind.

''Thanks.'' She replies, the weight of her title comfortable in her mind.

_Hey Sai_, she thinks, she greets. She doesn't know if he can hear at all, but she likes to think he can. She hopes he, she wants his to be there watching over, her, watching her win.

_I won. _

She tells him.

_I won. _

She's got a lifetime ahead of her and she knows exactly what she wants to spend it doing.


End file.
